Back Bay (23 page)
Authors: William Martin
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction / Historical, #Fiction / Sagas
He grunted. “Nothing will give me strength now. I’m looking for reasons.”
“The Bible will give you what you seek.” Her voice was soothing.
“You need not encourage me falsely. I expect to find no balm of Gilead between these pages.”
She decided there was nothing more she could do. She moved toward the door.
“Abigail.” The sharpness in his voice caused her to turn abruptly. “I do not wish to be interrupted for any reason. You may bring me nourishment at five o’clock, and my lamp is to be lit at six. When I ring my bell, I expect to see you or Wilson. Otherwise, Jason is the only person who may visit me, and I will see him only at the dinner hour. And keep that damned Greene away from me.”
Ordinarily, she was infuriated when her father spoke to her like the captain of a ship delivering orders to his cabin boy, but she remained pleasant. She did not wish to upset the equanimity which, at least in appearance, had reasserted itself against his grief. “Is there anything else, Father?”
He shook his head.
She closed the door behind her. In the hallway, she stopped. She could hear her father’s voice. She placed her ear against the door. Pratt was reading aloud. “ ‘Genesis, Book I. In the beginning…’ ”
On September 13, Abigail sat down at her writing desk and unlocked the drawer that contained her diary. She had been keeping a diary since her husband James had gone to sea in 1811. On the day he left, she had promised him that she would keep a record of her daily life, so that he might share it with her when he returned. But James Bentley had been lost at sea. After his death, the diary had become Abigail’s closest companion. She began to write.
It has been three days since Young Horace was buried, and Father remains in his room reading the Bible. He has not ventured out, even to pay his last respects to his grandson. When I asked if he would attend Horace’s funeral, he said he was preparing for the boy’s resurrection and others could bury him. Father has always been willing to quote Calvin, Christ, or the Bible when it was to his benefit, but I have never known him to be a deeply religious man.
He eats little or nothing, taking only water and a little fruit in the morning, bread and wine at midday, and broth in the evening. When I try to make him eat more, he tells me that if he weren’t so old, he would fast completely.
His behavior has been most unusual. I am worried.
By far the most worrisome episode occurred today. Our dear brother Jason came to offer his comfort and condolences. When he descended from Father’s room, he wore an expression of supreme smugness that was most unusual. For the first time in his life, he resembled a Pratt. He looked like Father after the return of a schooner from China.
Filled with trepidation, I asked him why he seemed so happy on such a black day. He told me, with great fanfare in voice and demeanor, that Father had put him in charge of the company’s operations until further notice. A second tragedy in four days.
After he left, I went straight to Father’s room and asked why he had made such an ill-considered decision. In response, Father began to read aloud from Exodus. I asked again, and he read more loudly. Eventually, his stubbornness overcame my persistence. I left as the Red Sea destroyed Pharaoh’s army.
Now I sit here watching night advance westward from the ocean, and I wonder what the future holds for family and company. Father seems to be in a deep trance. Brother Jason, who has long awaited his ascension to the presidency of Pratt Shipping and Mercantile, but done little to warrant it, is now empowered to make decisions affecting us all. Franconia, I’m afraid to say, is more daft than ever. She spends all her
time in the garden, where she sings and picks berries with her “Little Horry.” She talks to him as though he were three or four years old and still close by her side. It’s pitiful. I take some of the blame for her grief. Had I kept tighter rein on Father, the boy would be here today. And poor Wilson! He has not spoken, except to say “Yes, ma’am” and “No, ma’am,” since the accident. At least he is doing his chores again. But his eyes are blank. The life has gone out of him.
In the face of all this, it is difficult for me to know what to do. I expect that I now shall inherit fifty percent of the company, since Horace’s death has eliminated one strand of Pratt lineage and freed thirty percent of the company, to be split between Jason and me. Upon Father’s death, I will have legitimate power within the company. Until then, I must try to force my opinions upon Jason and manipulate him toward ends that I favor.
This war will end soon enough. With Napoleon defeated, England can concentrate its enormous military powers on us. We have no further need to fight the British over our right, as a neutral nation, to trade with whatever country we choose. And our fond belief that we could conquer Canada has long since been dashed.
So, peace will come, and there will be a rebirth in the shipping industry greater than any we have ever seen. Our warehouses are piled high with goods which have been sitting for two years, awaiting shipment to Europe. Our people, long deprived of the luxuries of the Continent, will be waiting breathlessly for the first American ships to return with European goods.
If we can hold out just a little longer, I’m certain we’ll be the richest family in New England by next Christmas.
But until Father regains himself, Jason must be carefully watched. I don’t expect that he will attempt to do anything foolhardy. He has never taken the initiative in anything. But the smile I saw on his face today give me pause. When the weak man takes power, his weakness may led him to act unwisely where the strong man would do nothing. I must be
vigilant, lest Jason decide to act and throw our money into textile mills.
It would be so much easier if I were a man!
Jason Pratt did not act for two weeks. While his father remained at home finishing the Bible and moving on to
Paradise Lost
, Jason sat each morning in the upstairs office on the corner of State Street and Merchants Row and tried to decide how best to use the income from the Pratt investments earning money. The Pratts controlled a granite quarry, a foundry on the Merrimack River, and tobacco lands in Connecticut. They were not on the verge of collapse, as his father led him to believe. The foundry was turning out cannonballs as quickly as the American Navy fired them, and Pratt was charging an exorbitant rate per pound. Moreover, Pratt ships had plied the Peninsula trade throughout 1813. The Pratts had been losing money since the extension of the British blockade in early 1814, but with good management, they would survive.
The Merchants Bank still held mortgages on the
Pegasus
and the
Alicia Howell
, two Indiamen that Pratt had built just before the war at the enormous cost of twenty-five thousand dollars per vessel. While most shippers held shares in several ships and shared their risks with others, Pratt believed that the most powerful businessman owned his ships and relied upon no one. Ships formed the lifeline of New England, he said, and the man who controlled them and the blood pumped through them would never be poor. He was always willing to advance loans to small businessmen, simply to keep them in his debt, and he was never afraid to gamble his assets on a mortgage, especially if he could commission Melville Morton, one of the best ship-builders in America, to construct a pair of beauties like the
Pegasus
and the
Alicia Howell
. Now, the businessmen were folding and defaulting on their loans, while Pratt Shipping and Mercantile barely made the payments on its idle ships and drained liquid assets in the process. It was clear to Jason that something had to go.
The Pratts held a standing offer from Thomas Handasyd Perkins, one of their oldest competitors in the China trade, to purchase the
Pegasus
and the
Alicia Howell
for thirty-five thousand dollars. Horace Taylor Pratt laughed at the offer, but Jason was
inclined to listen. Although they would take a loss on the ships, he could pay off the mortgages and have ten thousand dollars left over, with which to buy into Francis Cabot Lowell’s mill.
Jason Pratt believed that textile manufacturing would one day replace shipping as New England’s prime industry. For years, he had overseen Pratt operations on Long Wharf, and hundreds of miles of English textiles had been unloaded. He knew the market existed in America, and he had confidence in the ingenuity of men like Lowell, who had managed, in his travels across England, to learn enough about English looms that he could rebuild one in Boston from memory.
Ten shares of preferred stock in Lowell’s Boston Manufacturing Company would give Pratt Shipping and Mercantile one of the largest holdings in the organization. For a week, Jason tried to persuade himself to do it.
“Of course you should do it,” said his wife one night before they went to sleep.
Sarah Lowell Pratt, a cousin of Francis Cabot Lowell, was small and petite, with delicate features and a voice that sounded like a rusty well wheel, even when she whispered. “After years of treating you like a little boy, your father has given you the chance to show that you have the same initiative and intelligence that your brother had. Take the chance.”
“But what if the mill fails and the British lift the blockade next week? The
Pegasus
leaves harbor with a full hold and Perkins makes the profits. Father would be infuriated.”
Sarah rolled toward the window and gazed out at the ocean, just visible from their Fort Hill home. “I sometimes believe I married a coward.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice was feeble.
She rolled toward him again. “Then act aggressively. If not for yourself, for me and for your sons. Aren’t Artemus and Elihu as bright as little Horace ever was, and in no way as spoiled? Don’t they deserve affection and respect from their paternal grandfather? Make their grandfather recognize their father’s brilliance. For once, act like a man.”
“You’re always ready to attack me, aren’t you?” His voice was soft but filled with malice.
“You invite it,” she rasped. “Act strong, and the world is yours. Otherwise, not even your wife can consider you a man.” She rolled away from him again and curled into a ball.
The next morning, Jason Pratt dressed in his finest velveteen cutaway and silk cravat. At the office, he dictated a note to Thomas Handasyd Perkins: “Am considering seriously your offer to purchase the
Pegasus
. I must confer before the decision is made, but you shall have an answer the day after tomorrow.” Then he called for his father’s carriage and rode up the Charles River to Lowell’s mill in Waltham.
Fancis Cabot Lowell, up to his arms in grease, was supervising the installation of a new loom. He was short and bald, with a broad forehead, receding chin, and supercilious gaze. He did not welcome interruptions. “Yes, what is it, Pratt?” His high-pitched voice matched his appearance.
Jason ignored Lowell’s curtness. He smiled. “I’ve come to discuss the subscription you offered me. I’m prepared to put up ten thousand dollars.”
Lowell stopped working. “If your father was not quite so stupid, if he had acted when we first made the offer, the stock would be yours. However, the ten original investors exercised their options on the second offering, and there are no more shares available. Perhaps in a few years.”
Jason tried to hide his disappointment. “If my father is so stupid, why did you invite us to join the company in the first place?”
“Because of my relationship to your wife.” Lowell returned to work.
Jason Pratt could think of no rejoinder. He rode back to Merchants Row, went into his father’s office, put his hands on the seat of the leather armchair in the corner of the room, and sat on them.
Abigail Pratt Bentley opened her diary that evening, after a horseback ride down the Neck.
My worst fears were almost realized today, and I was powerless to stop the perpetrator. For two weeks, I have watched
Jason, and he has done nothing. Today, he sent for Wilson, and I was immediately suspicious. When Wilson returned, he told me—he has begun to speak, thank God, but only when spoken to—that he had taken my brother to the Waltham mill.
I dressed and went directly to the office, where I learned, to my relief, that my brother had failed. He looked quite despondent. May he remain despondent until Father returns!
When I interrupted Father’s reading to tell him what his son had done, he seemed unperturbed. “Jason must learn to face crisis,” he said. “Wisdom is gained only through error.”
With those words, so uncharacteristic of the Horace Taylor Pratt in whose home I was raised, I close this entry.
One October morning a few weeks later, Horace Taylor Pratt ended his retreat. He had Wilson dress him in his best breeches and black frock, then he rang for Abigail. When she entered, he was standing in front of the east windows, in a corona of bright sunshine.
“Today, I return to my worldly labors.” His voice was stronger and more confident than Abigail had heard it in years.
She smiled. “I feared that you would never again move from this room. You’ve been here a long time.”
“Forty days, to be exact. Forty days seeking answers, like Jesus in the desert.”
Abigail said nothing. She could always respond to his cynicism. She wasn’t prepared for piety.
“You look at me as though I were mad,” he said evenly. “I assure you I am not. Nor do I intend to don sackcloth and ashes and prostrate myself before the pulpit of the Park Street Church. I shall pursue my life and career as I have always done, because I am no hypocrite.” He paused. “And in the eyes of man, I am past redemption.”
“Father, don’t be so dramatic.”
“The Lord will save me if he so desires. I acknowledge my sins. I repent of them. But I know that it is my nature to commit them again.”
“You talk as though you were a murderer.” Abigail laughed gently and started toward her father.
“I am.”
She froze halfway across the room.
The sun glared in over Pratt’s shoulders. His features were indistinguishable. He seemed suddenly like an apparition. “I am more than a murderer, Abigail. I am Satan.”